Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Do you remember your first time?

Ahhhhhhhhkkkkk. Oh MY GOD!

That's what the lady told me this morning who hit the deer.

I watched it go down in real time.

She was scared [bleep], and shaking like hell.

"This was the first time I ever hit one."

"Good. Glad you got it out of the way. I've hit so many, I lost count."

she was OK, her car was fine, still running, and didn't appear to have major issues.

I told her I'd go check on the deer.

Pretty sure it was toast; it did a triple axel with a half gainer, with multiple parts in motion.

Visual inspection revealed it had been field dressed on impact.

Surprised there wasn't more on the car.

My first was running about 105 in a Chevy ambulance.

never have hit one, have come close but my cat like reflexes saved me.

Yup, the first one actually hit me! Broadside right behind the driver's door. I saw the SOB come down the hillside, so I slowed down. That gave him time to swerve right into my damned car.

Remember the first[as I with 'the other first ]
But the last was good one.
I had slowed to 20mph or so knowing it was going to dart in front of me. It barely was clipped by the front of my car[no damage], but it landed in the oncoming traffic lane and was sitting on it's butt. The oncoming SUV never slowed. It was ugly.

I had two run into the side of my truck back in GA.

One of them must of gotten a snout or leg jammed between the bed and cab. Was quite the trick as I was going around 50-60 mph. Made a hell of a mess.

Hit one in the fog one morning.

Another time I had an axis doe hit the side of my horse trailer.

I was driving an E250 and had just left the house, headed for work. I was in a 35 mph zone, so was going slow. I had just looked and reached toward the console to grab my coffee mug and had it about halfway to my mouth when the world exploded.

I couldn't tell what the hell had happened until I got pulled over and stopped. There was glass and white hair everywhere. I knew then that I'd hit something or something had hit me. I looked in the rear view mirror, but couldn't see due to the cargo in the back. I looked to the driver's side mirror, but it was gone. I hopped out to look around, still trying to figure out what had happened and spotted a good sized doe flopping around in the roadway a hundred feet behind the van.

She had apparently come out of the brush along the road on the driver's side at the same time that I glanced over while reaching for my coffee. Her head hit the lower left corner of the windshield, cracking it. She then knocked off the side view mirror, sending it through the closed driver's window. The mirror somehow ended up on the floor of the passenger side. How it didn't hit me either in the head or my partially raised coffee arm, I don't know.

The damage to the vehicle was only halfway over at this point because she then tumbled and banged against the side of the van, denting it in waves from front all the way to back.

I ended up making it to work after waiting for the deputy sheriff to arrive and take the report and put a bullet in the doe. I was shaking safety glass cubes and deer hair out of my clothes all day and I don't think I ever did get all the glass and hair out of that van.

I've hit a few more deer since that first one, thankfully they all came while driving older work vehicles.

Only once - $7K damage on my '04 F-350... Hope to never have it happen again..

Taken out 3 so far. First one was on a gravel road one spring morning about 2am and wouldn't leave the gravel. That one ended up with me in the ditch backwards, and started my deer hunting. If she'd been dead after I stopped being a Pinto pinball in a deep ditch I'd have called it fair, but she got up and ran away so that fall I took revenge.

Last one was stupid.. going 30 down a sandy country road in the sandhills and a buck came from behind and tried to cross in front of me.

Hitting deer sucks, but hitting elk sucks more!
Hit the first and only deer at about 5mph on the way to work one morning. It was freezing rain and I saw the deer crossing the road and tried to stop. Car just slid down the slight hill and tapped the deer just hard enough to knock it off it's feet. No damage to the car or the deer so far as I know. The first and only elk, I was coming back into Jackson and there were two elk in the road. One on the center line and one on the shoulder. I tried to split the two but the elk on the centerline started running away from me into the travel lane. I hit her in the rear at about 45mph. I ended up putting her down with a 380 to the head. The van had about 3000.00 worth of damage.

Center punched a bull elk just after leaving Old Faithful in Yellowstone. ABS brakes on a Audi Quarto got the speed down to the point that the air bags didn't deploy. However, it still totaled the Audi. Not a scratch on the wife or myself. Totaled the bull elk too, the park rangers had to shoot him, once shot he went into the Fire Hole River to die... $700 in towing - one very long night! Ya, I remember it like it was yesterday.

+1 I'm always aware of what could be popping into the road and aways looking

I've never hit one either but I've sure come close. The worst was a winter night with snow covered roads. I came over a low hill and there were 8 deer across the road, nose to tail, barrow pit to barrow pit. There was no way I could stop on the slick road so I chose the smallest one to hit. When I was 5 yards away, they separated right in front of me and I slithered through the hole missing them all. I know I brushed hair with both mirrors.

I've had two run into the side of my car, and hit one that ran across in front of me. Minimal damage all three times, thankfully. The one I hit broadside went out in a field and laid down. Somebody saw it happen and called it in. Sheriff showed up shortly. Didn't have a rifle with him, and wouldn't let me go get one of my own. He tried to get close enough to the deer to shoot it, but never got close enough to take a shot. The deer would get up and move off every time he closed up on it. Pretty sure that one didn't make it, but have my doubts that it died quickly.

I think I've killed two deer with cars.

The first was in HS. We lived about 40 miles from town. I drove in to watch a football game. On the way home I was rounding a corner, met a dump truck, flipped the lights down, passed it, flipped them back up, and they went clear off. I hit the switch madly about twice, they came back on, and I had a nice view of a deer just going under the front bumper. Guess it must have been stretched out running 'cause it went under the car instead of hitting the radiator. When it went under the rear axle it lifted dad's old Chebby Impala clear off the ground. Tha-THUMP tha-THUMP ... and that was it. Scrambled the crap out of the deer, didn't even knock the dust off the car.

The second was about 5 years ago. I was driving a Nissan Frontier. 55 up a back 2 lane. That truck had wildly sensitive ABS which would lock up on gravel and I'd completely lose control. I didn't have time to realize I was on pavement, I could have hammered the brakes. On pavement it'd stop so fast it's shadow would have to stop and back up. Instead I tried to drive around it. Nope. The deer got sucked up around the passenger side front tire and went clear around before being spit out on the ground. It was scrambled, insides on the outside, outsides on the inside. I dragged it off the road. I guess I was more jacked up than I thought. The front bumper was bent into the tire. I just put my foot on the tire and gave a big pull bending the bumper out of the way so I could drive home. When I got home, I couldn't any more bend that bumper than anything. Funny thing, the whole drive home I'd swear I smelled backstrap cooking. I don't know if it was psychological or if some spray of parts had hit the exhaust manifold and was cooking.

I've also hit a couple black bears but no damage from those. No elk yet. Fingers crossed. Elk, cows, and horses are BAD. I knew a guy who hit two geese head on with the same jeep ... 65 in the fog, geese flying right at him. Didn't do the jeep any good.

Tom

I've hit 3, one per year in my last 3 years living in Wisco. The deer up there are pure hell on vehicles. Haven't hit one since I moved to Texas, although my ex-wife (She Who Must Not Be Named, as my kids refer to her) nailed a couple down here in the 11 months she was resident in this Great State.

Total cost of vehicle damage by those 3 cervids was about $12,000. There was no way I could've avoided those collisions. Suicide deer.

FWIW, about 400 Americans die in their cars every year due to deer. The vast majority of those die in rollovers after they lose control trying to miss the deer.

Knock on wood, I haven't hit anything bigger than a coyote. Yet.

and on purpose

Slightly off topic. I worked with a woman who had 4 deer jump through her living room window and make a total mess out of her house. Cops shot the buck in her living room. The others went out through a different window than the one they came in. Rut was on, freezing rain/snow storm. Windows were probably reflecting the outside surrounding. I took two of those deer home, and they tasted horrible. Adrenaline?

Yeah, but how many deers?